Matthew Hoggard becomes latest 2005 Ashes winner to announce retirement

Matthew Hoggard becomes latest 2005 Ashes winner to announce retirement

• Yorkshire-born bowler played 67 Tests for
England
• Will play last game for Leicestershire on
21 September

Former England bowler Matthew Hoggard has announced his retirement From cricket at the end of the present season. Photograph: Julian Herbert/Getty Images

Andy Wilson

Matthew Hoggard has become the fifth member of England's 2005 Ashes team to announce his retirement. The eccentric Yorkshireman has gone out with a whimper rather than a bang at the age of 36, after hip and back injuries have restricted him to six County Championship appearances this season for Leicestershire – who he joined as captain in 2010, two years after the last of his 67 Test appearances.

Michael Vaughan, his 2005 Ashes captain, was one of the first to pay tribute. "Fantastic career," he tweeted. "An absolute pleasure to captain. Even though you are crackers."

Hoggard, from Pudsey, made his Yorkshire debut in 1996 and was first picked by England for the classic Lord's Test against West Indies in 2000, when he failed to take a wicket in the first innings, did not bowl in the second and was famously nervous on the pavilion balcony as Dominic Cork and Darren Gough secured a two-wicket win.

He had to wait almost a year for his next appearance, against Pakistan at Old Trafford in May 2001, but had established himself as a regular in Duncan Fletcher's team by the time he claimed a hat-trick against West Indies in Barbados in the spring of 2004.

By that stage Fletcher and Vaughan had assembled the attack they wanted to take on Australia the following year – Hoggard sharing the new ball with Steve Harmison, with Simon Jones and Andrew Flintoff in support, and Ashley Giles as the spinner.

Hoggard's performances in the 2005 series were solid rather than spectacular, with 16 wickets at an average slightly under 30, and arguably his most memorable contribution came with the bat, as he joined Giles to take England over the line in the fourth Test at Trent Bridge.

"I saw Ash before he went in and he was bricking it," Hoggard said at the time. "And I wasn't far behind him. But as soon as you stepped over the line it was almost surreal."

He enjoyed arguably his finest hour on the tour of South Africa the following winter, taking seven for 61 in the second innings and 12 for 225 in the match to secure a 77-run win in Johannesburg.

But two years later his career was abruptly ended when Peter Moores, who had succeeded Fletcher as England's coach, dropped both Hoggard and Harmison after a first Test defeat by New Zealand in Hamilton, preferring Stuart Broad and Jimmy Anderson for the second Test in Wellington.

That left Hoggard with 248 wickets from his 67 Tests at an average of 30.5, currently joint seventh on England's all-time list with Graeme Swann – ahead of Harmison (226 in 63 Tests), Flintoff (226 in 79), Jones (59 in only 18) and even Gough, his Yorkshire mentor (229 in 58). He played in only 26 one-day internationals, with a best of five for 49 against Zimbabwe in Harare in 2001.

Giles was the first of the 2005 Ashes heroes to retire in 2007, and he has since been followed by Flintoff, Vaughan and Andrew Strauss. Harmison is still contracted to Durham although he has hardly played for the past two years, but Jones has battled on despite years of knee problems and is now looking forward to a first appearance in a Lord's final with Glamorgan against Nottinghamshire in the YB40 competition on Saturday week.

Domestically, Hoggard was a member of Yorkshire's Championship-winning team of 2001, and took five for 65 when they won the C&G Trophy at Lord's in 2002. He ended with 668 wickets in 195 first-class matches for the county, and although his four years in Leicester have been spent mostly at the wrong end of Division Two – they are currently bottom by a distance – he enjoyed one memorable and unlikely triumph when captaining them to victory in the 2011 Twenty20 Cup.

"It's been an amazing journey filled with fantastic experiences shared with great people but time's come to hang the boots up!" he tweeted when announcing his retirement 24 hours earlier than Leicestershire had expected, later telling BBC Radio Leicester: "The body is not getting younger and bowling is not getting any easier."

Mike Siddall, the Leicestershire chief executive, said: "His wicked sense of humour and Yorkshire wit will be missed by all."